Earth’s secret

     Not solitarily in fields we find
     Earth’s secret open, though one page is there;
     Her plainest, such as children spell, and share
     With bird and beast; raised letters for the blind. 
     Not where the troubled passions toss the mind,
     In turbid cities, can the key be bare. 
     It hangs for those who hither thither fare,
     Close interthreading nature with our kind. 
     They, hearing History speak, of what men were,
     And have become, are wise.  The gain is great
     In vision and solidity; it lives. 
     Yet at a thought of life apart from her,
     Solidity and vision lose their state,
     For Earth, that gives the milk, the spirit gives.

     Internal harmony

     Assured of worthiness we do not dread
     Competitors; we rather give them hail
     And greeting in the lists where we may fail: 
     Must, if we bear an aim beyond the head! 
     My betters are my masters:  purely fed
     By their sustainment I likewise shall scale
     Some rocky steps between the mount and vale;
     Meanwhile the mark I have and I will wed. 
     So that I draw the breath of finer air,
     Station is nought, nor footways laurel-strewn,
     Nor rivals tightly belted for the race. 
     Good speed to them!  My place is here or there;
     My pride is that among them I have place: 
     And thus I keep this instrument in tune.

     Grace and love

     Two flower-enfolding crystal vases she
     I love fills daily, mindful but of one: 
     And close behind pale morn she, like the sun
     Priming our world with light, pours, sweet to see,
     Clear water in the cup, and into me
     The image of herself:  and that being done,
     Choice of what blooms round her fair garden run
     In climbers or in creepers or the tree
     She ranges with unerring fingers fine,
     To harmony so vivid that through sight
     I hear, I have her heavenliness to fold
     Beyond the senses, where such love as mine,
     Such grace as hers, should the strange Fates withhold
     Their starry more from her and me, unite.

     Appreciation

     Earth was not Earth before her sons appeared,
     Nor Beauty Beauty ere young Love was born: 
     And thou when I lay hidden wast as morn
     At city-windows, touching eyelids bleared;
     To none by her fresh wingedness endeared;
     Unwelcome unto revellers outworn. 
     I the last echoes of Diana’s horn
     In woodland heard, and saw thee come, and cheered. 
     No longer wast thou then mere light, fair soul! 
     And more than simple duty moved thy feet. 
     New colours rose in thee, from fear, from shame,
     From hope, effused:  though not less pure a scroll
     May men read on the heart I taught to beat: 
     That change in thee, if not thyself, I claim.